Sunday, June 2, 2013

Anthony Bourdain in Libya: freedom and fried chicken

I'm watching Bourdain at an "Uncle Kentucky" outlet in Libya. That's a faux KFC, which tells me that the Libyan people, at least some of them, are open to American popular culture circa mid 20th century.

Libya is the future. Our future.

Anarchy.

Fried chicken by day.

Terror by night.

The rule of the armed gang.

A return to tribalism.

That's where all of us come from. That's what we're going back to.

Not that we ever really left it behind.

Progress was a mirage.

It's not that progress has taken a u-turn; progress was a chimera all along.

Our technology has become more efficient.

We haven't.

We're not nearly as far removed from those guys who came out of the trees as the disciples of Darwin would have us believe.